Downloading the newest devil straight from China.

happy

So, none of what I planned to get done this afternoon got done, although, oddly, I cleaned part of the vegetable garden. Because, what with packing for Texas, finishing Rebecca’s dvd and package, finishing a pitch for my conference next week, doing a new post for the NHPR site I just started writing for, finishing the article for Parenting I wanted to have done before we left Friday…well, clearly what I really needed to do was work in the garden. Because we have LOA. (What the hell is that? See the previous post, please!)

But I digress (an excellent alternative title for this blog, btw).

Now we can plan. Now we can count. Here’s my secret plan: We’re in Seattle for Aliza’s wedding until May 27. I want to fly from there. It’s easier. It shaves 4 hours off our trip. It combines the craziness, and why not do that? It’s really reasonable, date-wise. Our agency won’t want to go for it. It’s going to make them nervous–too much planning too far ahead. I plan to spring it on them later. Rob I’m going to spring it on later tonight. He took all my mad sudden planning today very well (possibly because he was on his way out to play a last round of paddle tennis before the weather gets too warm to play, and don’t ask me to explain how that can be, because I can’t.) I do think it’s a good idea.

But–on to the most important subject tonight: Rebecca’s name. Now, Rebecca. A very good name, in fact. Solid. American. I like it. We’ll keep it. But we didn’t give it to her. And we do like naming. So we have some strong contenders for a middle or first name, and then we’ll see how it shakes out. I never, ever tell names beforehand, because the minute you do, someone says “Oh, I had a dog called that!” or “That was the name of the kid in third grade that everyone picked on!”.

But I’m going to do it now anyway. Here are the leading contenders:

Rebecca Rose, called “Rory”

Rebecca Claire

Audrey Rebecca

Rebecca Jade

Rebecca Elizabeth

Margaret Rebecca

Rebecca Skye (I suspect Rob’s just humoring me by leaving this one on)

Lucy Rebecca (much as I like this one, I think it’s out. Too many Lucy’s around already, plus it sounds like Lily. Ok, out.

We’re also adding a character to her Chinese name, but since I can’t type the characters and you can’t read them (neither can I) I will just leave them out, because that one has to both sound good and have the right meaning. I’ll get back to you.

Ok, nobody but another China adopting parent will know what that means. Suffice it to say it’s big news. It means our paperwork has been through the mill. There are no questions, there are no issues, and now we are just waiting for our permission to travel–which is a pretty standard and predictable process.

A few days ago I found Rob noodling around on the Internet (what did we do with ourselves ten years ago?) looking at, of all things, artificial ice. We’d been talking, looking at pictures of Rebecca, telling the usual end-of-the-day stories…him talking about how funny Wyatt was during tooth brushing, me describing the day’s drop off and pick up adventures. And now he was looking at…ice.

As in, synthetic hockey rinks. Really. Who knew? There were pictures–a big ole suburban house somewhere in the the sunny South with a pack of kids, zipping around in pads and shorts. A barn with a rink.

Now, where we live, having your own hockey rink is actually not uncommon–but that would be because it’s cold. We even have a friend who owns a Zamboni. A real, full sized Zamboni.

But a synthetic rink, that would be…something. And apparently it would only cost, oh, a gazillion dollars to put one in our barn! If we had a barn.

I told Rob I thought he should wait until we won the lottery. His response?